The United States was once proclaimed as the land of the free. Now we are more
often reminded that it has been the profitable home of an acquisitive society.
Greed and 'lust for money,' we are told, determined the course of development
of even the first years of the republic.

Yet, as early as 1800 a potent but silent ferment was at work which had nothing
to do with the almighty dollar. In describing conditions at the beginning of
Jefferson's administration, Henry Adams writes as follows: 'European travelers
who passed through America noticed that everywhere, in the White house at
Washington and in log cabins beyond the Alleghenies, except for a few
Federalists every American, from Jefferson and Gallatin down to the poorest
squatter seemed to nourish an idea that he was doing what he could to overthrow
the tyranny which the past had fastened on the human mind.' This idea so widely
disseminated among the citizens of the raw republic of sixteen states seems to
me one of the most essential and continuing elements in the development of
American education. I have ventured to associate with this passion for freedom
of the mind two other closely allied elements—namely, a belief in careers open
to all through higher education, and a faith in universal schooling. I have
labeled the whole with Jefferson's name. I trust that neither his shade nor
American historians will be unduly offended by my terminology.

In his brief autobiographical sketch Jefferson wrote that he deemed it
essential to a well-ordered republic to annul hereditary privilege. He proposed
'instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger, than benefit, to
society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which
nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society, and
scattered with equal hand through all its conditions....' Elsewhere, in
describing his new educational scheme for Virginia, he speaks of that part of
his plan which called for 'the selection of the youths of genius from among the
classes of the poor.' He declared, 'We hope to avail the State of those
talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but
which perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated.' These quotations
sum up for me the second component in the Jeffersonian tradition in
education—a sincere belief in the paramount importance of careers freely open
to all the talented.

Most important for its effect on the development of American educational
practice was the third element of the tradition—Jefferson's devotion to the
principle of universal schooling. This doctrine naturally has had more general
popular appeal throughout the years than either concern for freedom of the mind
or desire for opportunity through higher education. For here was a proposition
which directly affected every family in the land. To quote from the proposal
for Virginia, 'The ultimate result of the whole scheme of education would be
the teaching of all the children of the State reading, writing and common
arithmetic...' These words of Jefferson may now seem to us to describe a
degree of general education so small as to be negligible. But when they were
written they expressed a revolutionary doctrine—a belief that every potential
citizen in a democratic republic should receive at least a minimum of formal
instruction. The campaign against illiteracy had begun in earnest.

As a recent biographer has said, Jefferson believed that any boy or girl was
capable of benefiting from the rudiments of education and would be made a
better citizen by acquiring them. He believed in keeping open the door of
further opportunity to the extent that a poor boy of ability should not be
debarred from continuing his education. 'To have gone farther and made a
higher education compulsory on all,' suggests this biographer, 'would have
seemed as absurd to him as to have decreed that every crop on his farm, whether
tobacco, potatoes, rye, corn, or what not, must be treated and cultivated in
precisely the same way as every other....In terms of the citizen, he believed
in the maximum of equality of opportunity. In terms of the state, he believed
in the minimum of compulsion and interference compatible with the training of
all its citizens as citizens to the maximum of the capacity of each.'

To understand the bearing of Jefferson's ideas on the development of American
schools and colleges we must realize, of course, that they represented only one
aspect of a wider social philosophy. As this philosophy was understood by
large numbers of the citizens of the young republic, it included the following
points: a belligerent belief in individual freedom; complete confidence in the
powers of man's intelligence to overcome all obstacles; the assumption of a
society without hereditary classes, without an aristocracy; a differentiation
of labors with a corresponding differentiation in the types of education (but
no ruling caste, no hereditary educational privileges, everyone to be 'as good
as everyone else'); widespread education for all citizens so that political
decisions might be 'rational.' Dominating all was the doctrine of the maximum
independence of the individual, the minimum of social control by organized
society.

I.

Some such set of ideas as I have grouped together under Jefferson's name would
have been widely recognized, I believe, as 'American ideals,' in every period
of our national history. To understand their significance for the future let
us examine one by one the three components of the Jeffersonian tradition in
American education.

Hatred of tyranny in general and a desire to overthrow the tyranny which the
past had fastened on the human mind went hand in hand in the early years of the
nineteenth century, for the intellectual leaders of the Jeffersonian tradition
were steeped in eighteenth-century rationalism. The liberal faith of the Age
of Reason was a product of a cultural evolution intimately associated with
economic and political change, on the one hand, and the great triumphs of late
seventeenth-century science on the other. Newton was one of its heroes, and
John Locke a major prophet. The bill of rights and the laws of celestial
mechanics are lasting monuments to its glory. All who live in a land of free
institutions and enjoy the benefits of applied science have reason to be
grateful to the liberal leaders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Our gratitude cannot blind us to the fact, however, that these rationalists
greatly overestimated the role of reason in human affairs. They were much too
optimistic in their expectation of the practical consequences which would
follow the liberation of the human mind from the tyrannies they so despised.
Can anyone doubt that if Jefferson and Franklin should return today they would
be amazed and disappointed? Science, to be sure, has developed far beyond
their expectations; the material conquest of an untamed continent has exceeded
their wildest dreams. But the tyrannies which control our minds remain defiant
and largely unsubdued. We can imagine how shocked these eighteenth-century
statesmen would be to find after one hundred and fifty years the survival of
emotional reactions which they fondly supposed were founded only on ignorance
or superstition. Inanimate nature has proved more yielding than they imagined,
human nature more stubborn and barbarous than they supposed.

Today we live in a period of reaction. The optimistic tide has ebbed. To many
the failure of the 'war to end war' and the terrifying international scene may
be sufficient reason for discouragement. But I believe the cause lies deeper.
Are we not to a large measure suffering from the consequences which must result
whenever human beings base their hopes on fallacious premises? Our
intellectual ancestors were wrong on many fundamental points. The complexities
of both the inanimate and the animate world were greater than they dreamed.
Their errors, however, in physics, chemistry, and biology do not trouble us.
The impossibility of perpetual motion, of navigation to the moon, of the
manufacture of an elixir of life, we accept as a matter of course. But the
contrast between their hopes concerning the behavior of human beings and the
realities of the present has shattered many a modern soul.

The contemporaries of Jefferson idolized freedom of the mind. They placed one
ideal upon a pedestal and depicted a new era when humanity would bow down
before this shrine. In so doing they passed on to their descendants a bondage
to the hopes their prophecies engendered—utopian hopes of reforming man as a
social animal. In reality, a belief in a new form of magic came upon the
scene. The goddess Reason was to wave a wand and all mankind would be
prosperous and at peace. In the twentieth century we find the spell has
failed. Or so I read the past. And if I am right, then widespread enthusiasm
for intellectual freedom can be rekindled only when a sufficient number of men
and women readjust their expectations. Only then will the whole country strain
to unleash once more the potentialities of the human mind. When that time
comes a new sense of humility will reflect an altered mood. No easy faith in
the inevitability of progress will cheer us on. Instead, courage will flow
from a determination to face the problem of evil, not from a skill in hiding
it.

Scientists appear to agree that we must now modify even those modes of thought
which concern inanimate nature. The scientific point of view of the late
nineteenth century is already out of date. This is but another step in the
progress of a healthy skepticism. It is a recognition that we cannot settle
many questions we once thought solvable. It is a recognition that our
scientific theories are only models—models that help us formulate those
empirical observations which we generalize into scientific laws. It may be
necessary, as in the case of light, to employ two theories which once appeared
to be mutually contradictory. The physicist has learned to like this
situation, perhaps even to love the apparent contradiction involved in
employing a wave theory for explaining one set of optical phenomena, a
corpuscular theory for another. Parenthetically one may remark that those who
teach the elements of the subject have not had their task made easier!

The impact of these new modes of thinking about the sciences will eventually
have repercussions on all our ways of thought. In the annual report of the
Rockefeller Foundation for 1938 the President writes as follows: 'The physical
sciences have centuries of experimentation behind them; the social sciences are
just emerging from a priori and deductive methods. Even today a good deal that
masquerades under the name of social science is metaphysics, as obsolete in its
approach as was Francesco Sizzi's logic against Galileo's discovery of the
satellites of Jupiter. "The satellites are invisible to the naked eye," he
said, "and therefore can have no influence on the earth, and therefore would be
useless, and therefore do not exist." This same logical method, long outmoded
in the physical sciences, is traceable in some weighty books on economics and
political science written as late as 1938.'

This statement of Dr. Raymond B. Fosdick is indicative of a new critical
approach to vital problems. A reassessment of the realities of individual
behavior and the nature of society is in progress along several lines. Some
look to a fruitful combination of the work of the social anthropologist and
psychologist. Some believe that the new line of march should parallel that
followed so successfully in the development of modern experimental medicine by
clinicians. From many quarters come reports that a new strategy is now
developing. Once this is formulated and accepted there will be a rush of able
pioneers to exploit the field. Confidence in our intellectual leaders will
again surge upward. The Jeffersonian tradition will move forward; American
thought will change its orientation and American education will feel a
quickening of the pace.

II.

I venture, then, to look forward to a renaissance of the vitality of the first
element in the Jeffersonian tradition in education—freedom of the mind. I am
equally optimistic about the second—equality of opportunity. I plead guilty
at once to wishful thinking. Furthermore, I admit cheerfully that I propose to
indulge in dangerous prophecy. But can anyone discuss the future with a
neutral mind?

Until fairly recently it was taken for granted that the American republic could
be described as classless. For a century and a half Americans have been saying
with pride, 'This is a free country. There are no classes in the United
States.' Note these words carefully, for the denial of classes in America is
the denial of hereditary classes, not the denial of temporary groupings based
on economic differences. 'Caste' and 'class' are equated by the average
American, and I shall follow this usage. 'This is a free country. There are
no classes in the United States.' The number of times these two sentences have
been sincerely spoken could be recorded only by a figure of astronomical
magnitude. Were they ever an approximately accurate description of typical
American society? My answer would be yes. Have they today sufficient vitality
and validity to be the basis for a continuation of Jefferson's educational
program? A crystal gazer alone could tell. But I think the chance is good
enough to demand our careful consideration of the possibility. For my own
part, I risk with enthusiasm an affirmative answer and stand on the hope of our
reconstituting a free and classless nation.

Phrases descriptive of a free, casteless, or classless society have not only
represented an American belief of great potency in the past, but have described
actual conditions in many sections of this republic. As compared with the
situation in even such free countries as England and France, this country was
unique in being without hereditary classes. The importance of this fact, I
believe, has not been fully emphasized. But, I hasten to add, the social
changes which have altered the situation during the last fifty years have all
too often been ignored.

American society in some localities has always been organized on definite class
lines; money and power have been passed on from father to son. The different
strata have been relatively rigid and impenetrable But until recently such
situations were the exception rather than the rule. Now we see in progress the
rapid extension of such stratification over the whole land. We see throughout
the country the development of a hereditary aristocracy of wealth. The coming
of modern industrialism and the passing of the frontier with cheap lands mark
the change. Ruthless and greedy exploitation of both natural and human
resources by a small privileged class founded on recently acquired ownership of
property has hardened the social strata and threatens to provide explosive
material beneath.

Let us not shut our eyes to the realities. The vanishing of free lands, the
spread of large-scale manufacturing units, the growth of cities and their
slums, the multiplication of tenant farmers and despairing migratory laborers,
are signs of the passage from one type of social order to another. The
existence of vast unemployment only emphasizes the evil significance of an
unwelcome change. Have we reached a point where the ideal of a peculiar
American society, classless and free, must be regarded as of only historical
significance?

Our friends on the Left will, I imagine, say yes. A class struggle is
inevitable, they declare. Forget the dreams of a pioneer civilization, the
early American town or farm, and face the modern capitalistic world, they urge.
From their viewpoint no discussion of present problems which refuses to fit
every fact into the framework of a class struggle can be realistic. The
extremists will add, at least to themselves, that the outcome of the struggle
is also inevitable—a classless society, not of the early American type, but on
the Russian model.

On the extreme Right we may find an equally clear renunciation of the
ideal—equally clear, but not, as a rule, equally outspoken, for the underlying
assumptions here are often entirely unconscious. Throughout the history of
this republic there has been among a small group undue admiration for the
educational system of England, a system built largely on class lines. Among
such people Jefferson's idea of careers open to all the talented has evoked
little enthusiasm. There has been little concern with recruiting the
professions from every economic level. The ideal has been education of a
ruling caste rather than a selective system of training leaders.

Yet the unique character of the American way of life has been repeatedly
emphasized since Jefferson's time. Lincoln in his first message to Congress
declared that 'the leading object of the Government for those whose existence
we contend' is 'to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights
from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford
all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.' The historian,
F. J. Turner, writing at the beginning of the present century, summed up the
case as follows: 'Western democracy through the whole of its earlier period
tended to the production of a society of which the most distinctive fact was
freedom of the individual to rise under conditions of social mobility....'

Let me pause a moment to examine the phrase 'social mobility,' for this is the
heart of my argument. A high degree of social mobility is the essence of the
American ideal of a classless society. If large numbers of young people can
develop their own capacities irrespective of the economic status of their
parents, then social mobility is high. If, on the other hand, the future of a
young man or woman is determined almost entirely by inherited privilege or the
lack of it, social mobility is nonexistent. You are all familiar with the old
American adage, 'Three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves.' This
implies a high degree of social mobility, both up and down. It implies that
sons and daughters must and can seek their own level, obtain their own economic
rewards, engage in any occupation irrespective of what their parents might have
done.

Contrast this adage with a statement of the aristocratic tradition—namely,
that it takes three generations to educate a gentleman. Fifty years ago the
contrast between these two statements would have been proclaimed by many
intelligent Americans as the epitome of the difference between the New World
and the Old. The possibility that each generation may start life afresh and
that hard work and ability would find their just rewards was once an exciting
new doctrine. Is it outworn? In short, has the second component of the
Jeffersonian tradition in education still vitality? Can a relatively high
degree of social mobility be realized in this modern world?

The distinction between a stratified class system and one with a high degree of
social mobility is apparent only when at least two generations are passed in
review. A class, as I am using the word, is perpetuated by virtue of inherited
position. For one generation, at least and perhaps two, considerable
differences in economic status as well as extreme differentiation of employment
may exist without the formation of classes. Uniform distribution of the
world's goods is not necessary for a classless society. If anyone doubts this
statement, let him examine the social situation of many small communities in
different parts of this country during the early stages of their development.
Continuous perpetuation from generation to generation of even small
differences, however, soon produces class consciousness. Extremes of wealth or
poverty accelerate the process.

It is not within my province to consider what political measures should be
taken if we reject the idea of an inevitable stratification of society. It is
not for me to say what legislation is in order if we desire to implement the
ideal of a free classless society. My unwillingness to discuss this important
aspect of the problem is not to be taken as a measure of my dissatisfaction
with the rapidly growing social and economic differentiation of the United
States. On the contrary, if the American ideal is not to be an illusion, the
citizens of this republic must not shrink from drastic action. The
requirement, however, is not a radical equalization of wealth at any given
moment; it is rather a continuous process by which power and privilege may be
automatically redistributed at the end of each generation. The aim is a more
equitable distribution of opportunity for all the children of the land. The
reality of our national life must be made a sufficiently close approximation to
our ideal to vitalize a belief in the possibility of the envisaged goal.

I am wary of definitions—even in expounding the exact sciences to an
elementary class. It is often more profitable to explain the nature of a
concept by illustration than to attempt a definition. Both the words 'free'
and 'classless,' as I am employing them, have a relative, not an absolute,
meaning. They are useful, I believe, even in a rough quantitative sense, in
contrasting different types of social organizations which have existed in the
last few centuries in the Western World. It is easy to imagine a small segment
of any country where one would be hard put to it to say whether the society in
question was free and classless, or the contrary. To pass a judgment on larger
social units is even more difficult, but I should not hesitate to say that
Russia today is classless, but not free; England, free, but not classless;
Germany neither free nor classless.

To contrast the social history of the United States and that of even so closely
related a country as Great Britain is illuminating. If we examine, for
example, the recent history by G. D. H. Cole entitled The British Common
People, 1746-1938, we shall see portrayed the evolution of one type of
political democracy within a highly stratified caste system. Compare this
picture with the history of the growth of this republic by expansion through
the frontier in the last one hundred years—a history in which social castes
can be ignored; a history where, by and large, opportunity awaited the able and
daring youths of each new generation.

This fundamental difference between the United States and England has been
blurred by similarities in our political and legal systems and by our common
literary culture. Failure to give due weight to the differences between a
casteless society and a stratified society has had unfortunate consequences for
our thinking. I have already suggested that many of our friends on the Right
have had their educational views distorted by too ardent contemplation of the
English public schools (so-called) and English universities. Similarly, I
believe that in the last few decades our friends on the left, who look towards
a collectivist society, have suffered from overexposure to British views—views
emanating in this case not from the ruling class but from the left-wing
intellectuals of the Labor party. It seems to me that in this century, as in a
much earlier period of our history, an imported social philosophy has strongly
influenced radical thought. I am not referring to orthodox Marxism, but rather
to the general slant of mind inevitable among English and Continental reformers
whose basis of reference is a society organized on hard-and-fast class lines.
The original American radical tradition has been given a twist by the impact of
these alien ideas. As far as the role of government is concerned, the
political reformer has swung completely round the circle. On this issue,
Jefferson with his almost anarchistic views would find difficulty, indeed, in
comprehending his modern political heirs.

Native American radicalism has all but disappeared. Our young people now seem
forced to choose between potential Bourbons and latent Bolsheviks. But without
a restoration of the earlier type of radical the Jeffersonian tradition in
education will soon die. Obviously it cannot long survive a victory of the
socialistic Left—there is no place for such ideas in a classless society on
the Russian model. And it will likewise disappear automatically unless a high
degree of social mobility is once again restored. To keep society fluid, the
honest and sincere radical is an all-important element. Those in positions of
power and privilege (including college presidents) need to be under constant
vigilant scrutiny and from time to time must be the objects of attack.
Tyrannies of ownership and management spring up all too readily. In order to
ensure that the malignant growths of the body politic will be destroyed by
radiations from the Left, much abuse of healthy and sound tissue must be
endured. Reformers and even fanatical radicals we must have. But if the
unique type of American society is to continue, those who would better
conditions must look in the direction of the progressive or liberal movements
of an earlier period. The Left must consider returning to the aim of checking
tyranny and restoring social mobility. Reformers must examine every action
lest they end by placing in power the greatest tyrant of all—organized
society.

III.

There are probably some who feel that I am indulging in nostalgic fancy when I
hope for the evolution of a less stratified and more fluid society. You may
say that the modern world of large cities, vast industries, and scientific
methods of communication has made the America of a hundred years ago as
irrelevant as the Middle Ages. You may argue that a way of life which was
possible in the 1840s is impossible in the 1940s; that in the near future we
shall all of us have to move in a quite contrary direction. You may contend
that soon we shall have to take sides in a bitter class struggle and choose
between an American brand of Fascism and an American brand of Socialism.

I know that many believe this to be inevitable. I venture to disagree. And
here is the reason for my rash dissent. In my opinion, our newly erected
system of public education has potentialities of which we little dream. In
this century we have erected a new type of social instrument. Our
secondary-school system is a vast engine which we are only beginning to
understand. We are learning only slowly how to operate it for the public good.
But I have hope that it will aid us in recapturing social flexibility, in
regaining that great gift to each succeeding generation—opportunity, a gift
that once was the promise of the frontier.

Let me explain. Today some six million boys and girls attend our secondary
schools, ten times the number enrolled a half century ago. Today nearly three
quarters of those of high-school age are enrolled as pupils; fifty years ago
schooling at this level was a privilege of less than ten per cent of those who
might attend. Opportunity can be evaluated only in terms of personal capacity.
What is opportunity for one young man is a blind alley for another. In rapidly
expanding pioneer communities, openings for capabilities of all sorts
automatically appeared. Only doctors, lawyers, and ministers needed an
extensive education. Opportunities were ready at hand for all other types of
talent. In our highly industrialized, relatively static society, the situation
is otherwise. The personal problem of each boy or girl is much more difficult.
Abilities must be assessed, talents must be developed, ambitions guided. This
is the task for our public schools. All the future citizens pass through these
institutions. They must be educated as members of a political democracy, but,
more important still, they must be equipped to step on to the first rung of
whatever ladder of opportunity seems most appropriate. And an appropriate
ladder must be found for each one of a diverse groups of students. This may
seem an overwhelming burden to put upon our educational system. But is it not
possible that our public schools, particularly our high schools, can be
reconstructed for this specific purpose?

Jefferson thought of universal schooling of younger children chiefly in terms
of educating potential voters. His selective process for higher studies was
conceived in terms of intellectual pursuits—of preparation for the learned
professions such as law and medicine. To continue the tradition he started, we
must expand both of his ideas today. The roads which lead to those careers
which depend on aptitude for 'book learning' still run through the
universities. We must fight to keep them open. State-supported universities
have blazed the way. But the task is far from done. In many localities the
opportunities for the children of the really poor are lamentable indeed.
Outside of metropolitan areas and college towns, the privileges of a
professional training are hard to win. An expanded scholarship policy in our
privately endowed universities is imperative. Wisely administered student aid
will go far to right the balance. Perhaps this device merits more attention
even by institutions supported by the state.

The changes required to provide adequately for the intellectually gifted are
relatively slight. The real problems of reconstruction of our schools and
colleges do not lie in this area. The real difficulties are with the careers
of a different sort. Our schools must be concerned not only with the able
scholar, but with the artist and the craftsman. They must nourish those whose
eye or ear or manual dexterity is their greatest asset. They must educate
others whose gifts lie in an ability to understand and lead their fellow men.
The school curricula must include programs for developing the capacities of
many who possess intuitive judgment on practical affairs but have little or no
aptitude for learning through the printed page.

It has been a natural consequence of our history that many false values now
permeate the entire educational system. 'Book learning' is placed too high in
the scale of social ratings by some; too low by others who profess to scoff at
'brains.' That type of ability which can handle easily the old-fashioned
subjects of the curriculum is often glorified by being equated with
intelligence' by educational snobs. On the other hand, the same ability often
suffers from lack of stimulation when there is failure to maintain high
standards. As a result, we have a great deal of make-believe in our schools
and colleges—too many feeble attempts at tasks which are proper only for a
restricted type of individual; too many failures to explore talents which fall
outside orthodox academic bounds. Jefferson in the simpler society of his day
naturally thought of only a few avenues of opportunity open through education.
Today we must recognize the existence of many and strive for the social
equality of all.

Parents who expect miracles worked upon their children must be reminded of the
limitations imposed by nature. In athletics, at least, the coaches are
expected to develop only promising material. No one complains if his
undersized son with awkward legs does not become a football hero. Some
fathers, however, seem to demand the intellectual equivalent of such a miracle.
We expect our college health departments to direct each student into that form
of sport which is suited to his physique and power. We need a parallel form of
educational guidance in both schools and colleges to assist the development of
the skills of brain and hands.

But again I venture to be optimistic. I see signs everywhere of enormous
strides forward in such matters. Our educational pattern is becoming daily
more diversified; a recognition of the need for a radically different type of
education is growing. We look forward to the opening of many channels which
lead to a variety of attractive goals; we can envisage the building up of more
than one 'elite.'

Of course, in any realistic discussion of these problems we cannot neglect the
social and economic factors. As long as the shadow of unemployment is upon the
land, some method of providing food and clothing for the children of many
families must be found. For even free schools offer little real opportunity to
famished youngsters; public education is only theoretically available to those
in rags. Providing food and clothing for those to whom assistance is essential
is clearly necessary for a satisfactory functioning of the entire educational
system. Many a talented youth is lost by dropping out of the competition, for
financial reasons, during the high-school years. In short we must explore
every method of developing the individual capacity of each future citizen for
useful labor based on individual initiative.

Political and economic changes must go hand in hand with educational
innovations—the revision of methods of perpetuating control of many large
industries, the overthrow of nepotism and patronage wherever possible, the
stimulation of small enterprises, the spreading of private ownership. All this
and more is needed if a free classless society is to become once again an ideal
which affects our lives.

IV.

Freedom of the mind, social mobility through education, universal
schooling—these, let me repeat, are the three fundamentals of the Jeffersonian
tradition. They have represented the aspirations and desires of a free people
embarked on a new experiment, the perpetuation of a casteless nation. Popular
enthusiasm for enlightenment, for overturning dogmas, for intellectual
exploration, has temporarily waned. I have given my reasons for hoping that
the black reaction of these years is only a passing phase. The ideal of a free
republic without classes has likewise suffered an eclipse. To many of the
present college generation the phrase 'equality of opportunity' seems a
mockery, a trite collection of idle words. In this I see the major challenge
to our educational system, a challenge which can be met only by a radical
reconstruction. If the nation wants to bend its efforts to have as free and
classless a society as possible, then for those of us concerned with schools
and colleges our course is clearly plotted.

So it seems to me. If we as educators accept the American ideal, then this
acceptance must be the major premise for all our thinking. Without neglecting
the older roads designed for those of academic brilliance, we must construct
many new approaches to adult life, and we must do so very soon. Extreme
differentiation of school programs seems essential—differentiation of
instruction, but not necessarily a division into separate schools. From this
it follows that rapid improvement in our testing methods must be forthcoming; a
much more conscientious and discriminating form of educational guidance must be
developed soon if we are not to fail. In short, a horde of heterogenous
students has descended on our secondary schools; on our ability to handle all
types intelligently depends in large measure the future of this country.

Is it too late—too late for our schools to revitalize the idea of a classless
nation? Can we complete the necessary major readjustments in our educational
system in time to prevent the extinction of the Jeffersonian tradition? I
believe we can, if we make haste. I predict at least another century of vigor
for the American ideal. I envisage a further trial on this continent for many
generations of our unique type of social order. I look forward to a future
American society in which social mobility is sufficient to keep the nation in
essence casteless—a society in which the ideals of both personal liberty and
social justice can be maintained—a society which through a system of public
education resists the distorting pressures of urbanized, industrialized life.
I have faith in the continuation of a republic composed of citizens each
prepared to shoulder the responsibility for his own destiny. And if at each
step in the educational journey opportunity truly beckons, will not each
student rejoice in the struggle to develop his own capacities? Will he not be
proud of the continuing American tradition and find in contemplation of our
national history ample courage to face those risks and hazards that come to all
who would be free?

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His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Trinidad has the highest rate of Islamic State recruitment in the Western hemisphere. How did this happen?

This summer, the so-called Islamic State published issue 15 of its online magazine Dabiq. In what has become a standard feature, it ran an interview with an ISIS foreign fighter. “When I was around twenty years old I would come to accept the religion of truth, Islam,” said Abu Sa’d at-Trinidadi, recalling how he had turned away from the Christian faith he was born into.

At-Trinidadi, as his nom de guerre suggests, is from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), a country more readily associated with calypso and carnival than the “caliphate.” Asked if he had a message for “the Muslims of Trinidad,” he condemned his co-religionists at home for remaining in “a place where you have no honor and are forced to live in humiliation, subjugated by the disbelievers.” More chillingly, he urged Muslims in T&T to wage jihad against their fellow citizens: “Terrify the disbelievers in their own homes and make their streets run with their blood.”

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.

Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

“All the world has failed us,” a resident of the Syrian city of Aleppo told the BBC this week, via a WhatsApp audio message. “The city is dying. Rapidly by bombardment, and slowly by hunger and fear of the advance of the Assad regime.”

In recent weeks, the Syrian military, backed by Russian air power and Iran-affiliated militias, has swiftly retaken most of eastern Aleppo, the last major urban stronghold of rebel forces in Syria. Tens of thousands of besieged civilians are struggling to survive and escape the fighting, amid talk of a rebel retreat. One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth, the city of the Silk Road and the Great Mosque, of muwashshah and kibbeh with quince, of the White Helmets and Omran Daqneesh, is poised to fall to Bashar al-Assad and his benefactors in Moscow and Tehran, after a savage four-year stalemate. Syria’s president, who has overseen a war that has left hundreds of thousands of his compatriots dead, will inherit a city robbed of its human potential and reduced to rubble.

Even in big cities like Tokyo, small children take the subway and run errands by themselves. The reason has a lot to do with group dynamics.

It’s a common sight on Japanese mass transit: Children troop through train cars, singly or in small groups, looking for seats.

They wear knee socks, polished patent-leather shoes, and plaid jumpers, with wide-brimmed hats fastened under the chin and train passes pinned to their backpacks. The kids are as young as 6 or 7, on their way to and from school, and there is nary a guardian in sight.

A popular television show called Hajimete no Otsukai, or My First Errand, features children as young as two or three being sent out to do a task for their family. As they tentatively make their way to the greengrocer or bakery, their progress is secretly filmed by a camera crew. The show has been running for more than 25 years.

A recent study shows that people who simply ate more fiber lost about as much weight as those who went on a complicated diet.

By this time of year, many peoples’ best-laid New Year’s Resolutions have died, just seven short weeks after they were born. One reason why it’s difficult to lose weight—the most common resolution—is that dieting is so confusing.

For instance, the American Heart Association's recommended diet is one of the most effective food plans out there. It’s also one of the most complicated. It requires, according to a recent study, “consuming vegetables and fruits; eating whole grains and high-fiber foods; eating fish twice weekly; consuming lean animal and vegetable proteins; reducing intake of sugary beverages; minimizing sugar and sodium intake; and maintaining moderate to no alcohol intake.” On top of that, adherents should derive half of their calories from carbs, a fifth from protein, and the rest from fat—except just 7 percent should be saturated fat. (Perhaps the goal is to keep people busy doing long division so they don't have time to eat food.)